Facebook is attempting to shed a reputation for being stand-offish with advertisers by promising to show "humility" and work more closely with agencies and brands.

Carolyn Everson, the vice-president of global marketing solutions, told The Independent on Sunday: "It's putting a human side to Facebook – that this is not just a big technology company operating here in the UK and in Europe."

Ms Everson, who looks after Facebook's top 1,500 advertisers, dismissed suggestions that the world's biggest social networking site could cut out ad agencies and deal directly with big corporations.

"I need the agencies," she said. "They are critical for us to scale our business. We are small in comparison to some of our competitors" – an apparent reference to bigger rivals, notably Google.